What even is the idea, what would be the value in weeding out niche apps, if they did it consistently? To reduce the work involved in keeping everything in the garden lovely?
None of the app store rules are used as guiding principles for ensuring some higher goal. It's just a bunch of random rules that allow them to ban anything they don't like at any moment in time. Sometimes it's because of the whims of a particular app store reviewer, and sometimes it's to get rid of apps that compete with something Apple wants to do.
I've been thinking about this because I'm working on an internal company tool. It's a web app but I was thinking about creating mobile apps. In the age of agentic coding, that's no longer a massive undertaking like it used to be.
However, I'm completely blocked by Apple app store review. There's no way an app designed for 30 people would pass.
I can't get an internal app onto people's phone. I could release it as a test app but that might get blocked at any point.
I can at least release a PWA but as I understand even that might get notifications blocked at any point, with no recourse, and of course functionality is highly limited.
So the goal here is clear: don't allow people to write small apps.
Apple can then make sure they are only allowing apps that required enough work, both initially and ongoing, that nearly everyone will feel the need to charge, or include ads, and then Apple gets a 30% cut every time.
As for why a car company's app passes, obviously they don't want anyone with enough power to challenge this in court, politically, or in the media. So those get a pass.
There is Apple enterprise for this reason. Depending on the set of APIs you want to use (which should be limited since you spoke of webapps), it allows you to distribute internal business apps.
Don’t know how known this is. But we use it mainly for internal testing.
> The Apple Developer Enterprise Program allows large organizations to develop and deploy proprietary, internal-use apps to their employees
> Your organization must:
> Have 100 or more employees
Again, it's clear that they're providing this out so that organizations with power don't have to start a fight, while small organizations can't do anything.
Even aside from that, it's clearly going to be so much work that we wouldn't be able to do it. I'm the only developer at the company, I cannot get bogged down in Apple review processes.
For internal apps, you could go through ADEP [1] if you want to avoid the app store + review + custom apps route. But eligibility requriements have been tightened over the years IIRC.
I think its just to mitigate spam apps. The window's app store is kinda garbage. Apple doesn't want to spend their QA resources on apps that only 10 people can use.
Confusingly, though, as you are of course a nice person, if you vote red you'd demonstrate that some red voters are nice, and then the choice is less severe. Then voting red is like "I embrace humanity, warts and all", while voting blue is like "I cannot tolerate sharing the planet with anyone even slightly impure".
I notice that this thing you and others call empathy doesn't extend to the outgroup: if anybody doesn't subscribe to it, fuck 'em, is the general sentiment.
No idea! Well, I must assume good faith and believe you. To me it looks like you're labelling everybody you dislike as "probably a psychopath, best disposed of". I suppose that's consistent with saying they're not the outgroup, it's just a practical necessity or something.
In this instance of course what you're proposing is very mild: you think they should suffer one another's company - which you imagine would be a terrible experience. Unless you further imagine that they'd like it? But my impression was that you thought they'd have a bad time, and since they're your non-compassionate outgroup, you very compassionately don't care.
You read a bunch of things into what I wrote that simply are not there. I like plenty of people who would press the red button without hesitation. Their decision is their decision and my decision is mine. Might they “have a bad time?” Maybe. Maybe not. I’m certain I would have a terrible time, if I joined them in the majority.
If we imagine people will ignore their real-world political tribalism:
Voting blue is voting to possibly die, either because you want death or in risky solidarity with others who voted to possibly die, who may have chosen by mistake. Voting red is voting for those interested in death to die, along with those who chose blue by mistake, and along with anybody who voted blue in support of those who voted blue by mistake.
So we can have a blue campaign that says "we must not allow even one voter to die, we must all pull together and vote blue", and a red campaign that says "please don't be a giant crowd of idiots who risk death, just accept that maybe two voters aren't going to make it because one was depressed and the other had an involuntary hand movement, and everybody else play it safe and vote red".
This is a ridiculous situation, and Jonathan Swift unfortunately died in 1745, so the best commentary I can offer is "I don't know".
I guess you base that surprising "half" on the transparent analogy with politics, and so you think real-world Democrats will press blue to assert their Democrattiness. This is probably true. However, since this is the internet, and being a Democrat is associated with being online and living in a city, there are probably more than 50% blue-pressers, as shown in the poll. Just like in the real world, you won't change that ratio whichever way you vote in the poll. If swaying opinion is within a voter's control, then your "choosing" is meaningful but the "half" becomes meaningless. If swaying opinion isn't within the voter's control, it's "choosing" that becomes meaningless, and the fate of the half is already sealed by cultural forces beyond our control.
I disagree that the hypothetical maps onto politics. Voting for democrats is mostly a vote for someone else (billionaires, etc.) to shoulder additional burdens to achieve some positive end. By contrast, this game involves serious risk to one's self and family. Lots of people would vote to raise corporate taxes to increase funding for schools in Baltimore. But those people aren't going to move their kids to Sandtown to help increase the property tax base.
I think if you played the game for real, blue would get maybe 5% of the vote, tops.
Ha! You must be using a different username than I knew you by then. Hit me up on one of the many platforms we’re probably both on if you like, would be good to reconnect.
Do you think property rights exist in reality? This quality of naturalness is tricky for me to get to grips with, but property rights are very basic, so they surely are part of the universe, right?
The point of this question is that I own my clothes, but the government does not own the tobacco. Unless you think the government owns everything.
Show me the thermometer-equivalent that measures ownership.
Ownership is a fabrication of human mind. If it was part of the universe we would be able to devise an instrument that mesures it. We've done a very good job of reifiying it and telling people that it's part of the natural order, but humans are very very good at constructing ontologies and forgetting they are the authors.
Can you really end up as a passive smoking addict? If your usual source of secondhand smoke goes away for a while, I suppose you start awkwardly crashing the smoke breaks of strangers.
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